


Games We Play

by super_heroine_addict



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Training, Two idiots in love just generally being adorable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/super_heroine_addict/pseuds/super_heroine_addict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Macintosh finds his Queen training in the woods and joins in. What starts as a competition turns into a love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Games We Play

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally posted on tumblr, prompted by thereisnolumos and beta'd by fangirl--of-everything. You guys rock! I can't wait to write part 2!

Honestly the whole thing was an accident. A visiting Duke, some tiny man from a Northern duchy Macintosh hadn’t bothered learning the name of, had been meeting with the Queen to discuss trade negotiations. Apparently his small country had been in some distress after losing a partnership with their neighbor Arendelle, and were now seeking other means. He’d only looked in on the meeting because he’d hoped to catch Merida afterwards, but he couldn’t help feeling bad for the young Queen as the man prattled on and on. Merida held on to her patience as long as she could, but eventually she’d had enough. Hastily dismissing the Duke with a promise of consideration, Merida was up and out the door before Mac could stop her.

Like he said, the whole thing was an accident. He hadn’t meant to go looking for Merida, but the Duke had gotten on almost everyone’s nerves, with his constant complaining about the food or the whether or whatever else displeased him. Feeling the need to get out and away, he’d saddled his horse and ridden out into the woods. It was just a coincidence he’d stumbled upon Merida some miles away, bow in hand and arrows flying.

“Yer Majesty!” he called, trotting his horse next to where Angus was tied to a nearby tree, and swinging down. Merida looked up and smiled brightly when she saw him. Her hair was matted down with perspiration, but her eyes were shining. Mac knew that look well, for she got it whenever she’d had a particularly hard ride or difficult shot. Once, when mead had flowed a little too freely between the two friends, he’d admitted he loved that flushed and happy look, and in turn she’d admitted it was her favorite feeling, when she felt tired but exhilarated, when her muscles ached pleasantly. Mac had to force himself to keep from thinking about all the ways he wanted to make her muscles ache. At this moment, he also had to keep from thinking about how the beads of sweat combined with the afternoon sun made her skin glisten like a beacon.

“Oy, Macintosh, I didnae see ya.” Merida replied . “I needed a break. Tha’ Duke a’ Weselton was drivin’ me up a wall.”

“Aye, I’ve had misfortune a speaking ta the duke.” Mac agreed. “Tis no wonder Arendelle cut him off.” 

“I’ll need to ask Queen Elsa about that.” Merida said. She reached to grab another arrow and for the first time Mac noticed there were no arrows sticking out of tree trunks.

“Where are ye aimin’ for?” he asked. Merida pointed straight ahead, and with a fair bit of squinting, Mac finally noticed a red target drawn on a far off tree. The path to it was so narrow that it was clear only a very precise shot would result in the arrow landing anywhere near the target. He could see an arrow lodged a few inches from the center.

“I can’t get it right.” she explained. “ I have ta aim too far ta the right ta keep it from hitting tha’ tree near the middle, but I cannae find the exact path ta the target.

“Here, let me try.” Mac grabbed his own bow and took aim. After lining up his own shot, the arrow grazed the offending tree and fell short a few feet later. Merida snorted back a chuckle. He glared at her, she smirked back. She armed her own bow.

“I bet ye I can make it before you can.” she dared. Just as she knew he would, Macintosh rose to the challenge.

“What’s the prize?”

Merida shrugged. “What do ye want?” Mac thought about it for a moment, then gave her his most devilish grin.

“Winner gets a kiss from the loser?”

He thought maybe he could surprise her, get a glare or an insult out of her. What he got instead was so much better. Merida flashed her most brilliant smile, sweet innocence that was all mischief in her eyes.

“Yer on.”

“So eager to kiss me, m’lady?”

“I’m not gonna lose.”

They stayed there until the sun was low in the sky, taking turns at the shot. They would line up each shot differently, trying with different stances, angles, anything they could think of. A few close shots required them running forward to check the target, but there was never a dead center hit. Even that they made a game of, racing to and from. But still neither of them had made it until finally Mac thought he ought to call it quits. Looking around, they both seemed to realize just how much time had passed. Soon there’d be no more light to shoot by.

Merida glanced at Mac. “Once last round?”

“Aye.” Mac agreed. Taking his stance and pulling the bow taunt, he closed his eyes and really focused, imagining the arrow flying away from him, skimming the tree and landing right in the center of the target. When he opened his eyes, there was a shift in the air- the world fell into perfect clarity. Exhaling, he released the arrow.

With a sound thwack that reached their ears, Mac’s arrow landed in the dead center of the drawn target. Merida actually gasped, and Mac couldn’t help the cheer that erupted from him. Merida laughed along with him. Caught up in his success, it took a few seconds before Mac remembered the terms of the agreement. Grinning wildly, he turned to face his Queen. “I believe we had a deal m’lady?”

Merida smirked. “Aye, we did. But I still get one more shot.”

Mac’s smile slipped slightly as he tried to figure out what Merida had in store. But he stepped back to allow her room to shoot.

Merida’s process looked very like his own. But she went through it with such an easy confidence Mac thought it absurd. It wasn’t as if she’d made the shot yet.

Merida’s eyes barely opened before she loosened her arrow. At first Merida thought she was too far to the left to avoid the tree, but rather than avoid it or be stopped, the arrow knocked through the outstretched bark, continued on its path, and split his arrow in two as it perfectly hit its mark. Mac gaped and Merida just shined, spinning around to send him her best grin.

“How long have ye been able ta make tha’ shot?” he asked when he finally got his voice back.

“That was me first time.” she told him honestly.

“But how long have ye known how?” he insisted. Merida didn’t answer, she just continued smiling that little smirk of hers.

“Well, it’s a tie then.” he said, a tad bit grumpy at the loss of his prize 

“I guess we’ll need a tiebreaker then.” Merida looked around. They had to be getting back, before Elinor sent someone out searching for the Queen, as she was known to do when Merida was gone too long without telling anyone. “Race ye back to the castle?”

Without another word they were off, untying and mounting their horses and racing back in the dying light.

——

After that it had never ended. They never could declare a winner, and so it became a game with no end in sight. Sometimes others would join their competitions, and sometimes it would be a silent agreement between the two, a subtle nod or a smirk. Everything that could be counted was fair game- soldiers bested in practice, targets made, races won, drinks downed, children carried. Once they even raced to see who could muck a stall faster (Mac could). But by far their favorite competition was in practicing; riding out into the woods and going at it with bows or swords.

The castle was surprisingly quiet about the matter. It was impossible not to notice the little smirks and glances between the two, but no one made a big deal about them often returning from the woods together, worn out and jubilant.

Well, no one but Elinor, who reprimanded her daughter like a reverend mother when she saw it happen for the fourth time. ‘A lady does not disappear for hours on end with a man she isn’t married to.’

‘A queen can go wherever with whomever she likes.” Merida had responded.

There was also Mac’s banner men, who’d had a field day when they discovered Mac lost in thought when gazing at the Queen, but he’d threatened to toss them out by the balls if any said a word about it. None of them had.

———

Mac could tell Merida was having a rough day the second he saw her. Her hair was twice as wild as normal from all the times she’d pushed it back. She hadn’t been present at Court that day with no explanation. Leaving Elinor to handle the ruling, he’d gone to find her in what he’d begun to consider as their spot in the woods (Gods, the other lords would laugh him out of the country if they knew he’d been thinking like a lovesick maiden). She was hacking away at the air with such force it was as if invisible demons were plaguing her.

“My Queen.” he called as he dismounted. Merida looked up, startled by his approach. When she turned to look at him, Mac felt the sting of disappointment; she normally brightened and smiled to see him, but today she was just bitter and angry.

“What do ye want, Lord Macintosh?” she asked him, before turning to fire an arrow. Mac followed its path, and was surprised to realize it was the same target they’d practiced on when they first met. Only now, having mastered it, Merida was firing arrow after arrow into the bullseye, creating a starburst pattern of split arrows. Common sense told Mac to bow out gracefully, to seek her out later, to not bother the sleeping bear that was his Queen.

So naturally, he did none of that.

“What’s the matter with ya?” he asked. She turned and fixed a glare on him. “M’lady.” he added.

“It’s yer majesty.” she corrected. “And nothin’s the matta’.”

“The way yer attacking tha’ tree makes me say different.” Mac walked closer and though she gave him her best halting glare, he just kept going until he was right in front of her. The two had an impressive staring contest that probably didn’t last nearly as long as it seemed, but finally Merida sighed in defeat. Her rigid posture disappeared into her normal, comfortable slouch, forcing Mac to bite back a smile- her normal height gave him at least half a foot on her. “It’s not important.” she said.

“Merida,” he said softly, and this time she didn’t care he had ignored her honorific. Tentatively he reached and took hold of the hand holding her bow. She raised an eyebrow at him, though Mac wasn’t sure if it was for grabbing her hand or her prized weapon. “You can tell me.”

For a moment Merida looked like she was considering it. But then she just shook her head. “Nay, I don’t want ta talk about it.” Looking around for an excuse to change the conversation, and her eyes landing on her sword, she gently, maybe even reluctantly pulled from Mac’s grip. “Feel like going’ a few rounds?” she asked casually, the last traces of anger fading from her face. She drew her sword. “It can be our deciding match.”

Disappointed though he was, Mac gave her a smile and drew his own sword. “It can’t actually. We’d have ta be even for tha’.”

“What’s the score?” she asked as they began to circle, a useless maneuver since they already knew each other’s fighting patterns by heart.

“Not quite sure, but I ken yer in the lead.” he told her.

‘I thought it was even.”

“Nay, I lost a point yesterday, remember? For tha’ mess with the pigs.”

Merida laughed, and the sight alone was worth the embarrassment those thrice damned pigs had caused him. “In tha’ case, I suppose ye need ta be catchin’ up.”

Mac returned her smiled, then without warning and still grinning, he lunged into the game.


End file.
